Twin Destinies
by liannathejinx
Summary: Some stories begin with two and end with one. One dark and one light, one like the jagged Thorns of a long dead Rose, the other speaking the Last terrible Word. When a newly reborn Hunter stumbles upon a living legend in the Plaguelands, her path gains a new purpose: to hunt down the second owner of the accursed Thorn. Lots of swears, some gore and slow updates.
1. 00-Prologue

**G'day, y'all!**

 **I've been absent from this website for more than two years I think and I am so sorry for abandoning my** ** _Tron_** **story. It's just that once I had lost all those chapters I had written back then I couldn't get any good idea to bridge what I still had with what was published already. Nevermind, back to this.**

 **I've been playing** ** _Destiny_** **obsessively for about 3 months now and I find the story behind it fascinating. Apart from it being an awesome game the themes in the background are worth exploring and really caught my interest, more so when I found some enacting of the grimoire cards on Youtube. This is going to take a try to expand the story of Thorn and the Last Word and their owners, along with some storytelling of the campaign of the game.**

 **As for updates...I can't promise anything. Life tends to get in the way quite often so updates may be quite far in between once this creative streak is diminished.**

 **So, enjoy and remember that I'm only borrowing Bungie's universe and characters, not taking them. The only things I own are my characters.**

 ** _00 - Prologue_**

 _We know what we are, but we know not what we may be. -William Shakespeare  
_

 _ **Excerpt from recorded journal of K. Glass- 9/11/2020**_  
 _It's a day of commemoration at the base._  
 _No wonder that both Ant and I are_ not _at the base. Too many fucking memorials, flowers and candles for a tragedy that marked our whole country nearly two decades ago. Ant told me once before we enlisted that he was so sick of the looks we both got, of their pity and shallow reassurances he wanted to tell them all to fuck off and mind their own business._ We are not just novelties for the press to fawn over, _he had fumed, pacing nervously when Marge had had to tell off another reporter who came to check if we wanted to talk about the day Mum and Dad got killed in that tower after they saved us._ No, fuckers, _he shouted at the empty driveway,_ we don't wanna fucking talk.  
 _Jones was surprisingly considerate this time, and managed to suppress his nasty demeanor when we asked to be put on scouting duty,_ or any duty, please Lt, we just can't take this shitshow - they'll ask too many questions about that "Twins who lived" shit _. He had agreed and here we are, in the middle of fucking nowhere in the Russian taiga, hunting ISIS sleeper cells. Ant's complaining about the weather - too much, like the little bitch he is sometimes - but for sure it's better than being paraded - certainly better than reliving it all._

* * *

"Ant! Ant, you useless piece of shit, wake up!"  
Kat kicked her brother for good measure but the lazy bastard just turned on his other side and continued snoring. Sometimes she could swear Ant could sleep _anywhere_ , even with a war next to him, but now was not the time for his shenanigans. Their comms officer had picked up a suspicious transmissions and the team was deployed to investigate the site - something about a sleeper cell planning an attack on Vladivostok .  
"Anthony Glass, wake up this instant," Kat snapped in her best imitation of their mother's voice when she was pissed at them, grinning when her twin jumped awake.  
"Yes, Mom, I'm..." His dark blue stare focused on his sister and his expression darkened slightly. "You... _You_..."  
"What, my dear, sweet brother?" _You say what you wanted to say and I put a bullet in your sorry ass_ , she thought to herself smugly as Ant tried unsuccessfully to smooth down his unruly hair and get untangled from the army-issue sheets.  
"Don't do that," he growled, finally extracting himself from the tangled bedding.  
"Do what?"  
"Imitate Mum. you know how scared I was of _The Voice_."  
Kat chuckled darkly, tossing Ant his clothes. "And that's _exactly_ why I keep doing it. Get in gear, we're getting deployed."  
"To where?"  
"Disneyland."  
"No seriously, where?"  
"I got absolutely no idea," she shrugged, turning to the exit so he could get dressed.  
"D'ya reckon we'll get some action?" he called after her.  
"Maybe, hope so anyway," came the answer. "I'm so getting bored here."

* * *

"I am _so_ eating my words right now," Kat groaned, peeking from behind the stack of crates she and her brother used as cover.  
"Ya say so?" Ant sounded more pissed than scared but he was always the daredevil. Even when it came to facing down 50 terrorists with a team of only 6 black ops.  
"We're in the middle of Shitsberg with a whole bunch of fanatics shooting at us. I'd take being bored over this any day, bro," she stressed.  
"Well, whose fault is it?" he hissed, shooting down one of the assailants with his usual accuracy.  
Kat had to admit he was right; she had been the one to stumble upon an abandoned system of Bolshevik bunkers and suggest going in to check, an idea she was beginning to regret more and more as another spray of bullets impacted the wall dangerously close. Mallory and Hicks were already down, leaving only the twins, Garcia and Said up and shooting. Said was bleeding and so was Garcia but they kept trying to fend off the terrorists until a stray bullet hit the small Hispanic Lieutenant and she went down, twitching a couple of times before she became still, a growing puddle of blood spreading around her.  
"We're getting shredded here, Ant," Kat said, fumbling for another clip at her belt. _Fuckfuckfuck - no ammo-notgoodnotgood_. "I'm out of ammo!" she cried.  
Said tossed her a clip and she quickly loaded, swearing as she aimed. Four more guys fell under her bullets but it was futile, they were so many and they were out of ammo and _I'll be damned if they hurt Ant again like they did Mom and Dad - ISIS, Al Qaeda, they're all the fucking same, all basta-_  
Ant froze next to her, gasping as if in pain.  
 _NonononoNO_!  
His hand went to the middle of his abdomen and came off crimson red. Another loud bang and Said fell too - _go figure, they don't care that he's Arabian, killed him the same -_ but Kat only saw the shock on her twin's face and the red staining his fingers as another bullet hit him, this time in his chest, and he dropped boneless to the ground before she could catch him.  
"No! Ant, look at me - " her words caught as a sob rose to her throat. " _Ant_..."  
"Don't... cry," he rasped weakly.  
"You're going to be okay, I'll get us out of here - _nonono, don't say it_ -"  
"There's no getting out for me, sis," Ant said, pointing out at the two holes gaping in his body as his eyes began to close and all the remaining color flushed out of his face.  
"Ant?! Don't you fucking dare leave me you fucking bastard or I'll find you in the afterlife only to kill you! Ant?! _Ant!_ "  
He didn't answer and Kat felt her stomach sink. It was as if someone had torn away half of her and left the other half exposed and naked and battered in the wind of a thousand storms. Empty. In agony. She gently lowered the dead body of her twin on the floor and grabbed her rifle, seeing only red hot rage in front of her eyes. She was going to make them pay even if it was the last thing she would do.  
Her bullets never missed their target, their aim unerring as her victims fell under the hell she brought upon them until the clip was empty. Kat never even bothered to reload and instead pulled her trusty knife and slashed away, not caring who she ended until something hit her hard, burning through her stomach and bringing her to her knees with a blinding wave of _pain_. She never managed to get up again when another flash of agony seared through her skull and she knew no more, the last thing in her head apart from the bullet being the hope of finally seeing her family again.


	2. 01-All ends are beginnings

**Finally got this done, so there you have it. Enjoy and remember all that 'I own nothing' babble.**

01 - All ends are beginnings

The Ghost hovered above the barren and scarred ground, musing to himself as he scanned for more spinmetal. From the carbon deposits and whatever little records remained from the Golden Age he concluded that the whole area used to be a forest before it was cut down to make way for the Cosmodrome. He wished he could have seen it, but reminded himself he had a job to do and that the spinmetal wasn't going to gather itself anytime soon.  
"Better get to work," he hummed, transmatting a good amount of a nearby formation to his stores.  
Guardian-less Ghosts were on harvest duty for the City, and that was what he was: a Guardian-less Ghost. He had looked for as long as he remembered but out of all the volunteers from the City none caught his interest. Somehow he knew that none of them were his intended partner so he soon stopped looking and began searching the wilds outside the Traveler's protection for someone with enough Light to be revived. Centuries of search later he had found nothing. Not even a hint of the one he was meant for and it rankled the small AI more than he cared to admit when his fellow Ghosts mocked hid conviction. He should settle for one of the volunteers, they said, it was a fool's quest what he was doing. Fool's quest or not, he had answered, he knew that his Guardian was somewhere out there and he would find them.  
There was something about the old Cosmodrome in Russia that kept drawing him there for some reason. The Ghost had scanned every nook and crannie but had found nothing but the pull hadn't disappeared or lessened over the time, making him take more and more risks, venturing into known Fallen territory in his quest. Not even a couple of narrow escapes from the scavengers deterred him from his search so the new day's light found him hovering over the rusty frames of long ago destroyed cars outside of the Wall. after collecting the spinmetal he pressed on, halfheartedly scanning a pair of skeletons in one of the cars. He was so close to finding his partner, he could _feel_ it.  
The Ghost felt himself drawn to a place between two rusted cars directly in front of the large scarring in the wall that marked where it had been breached by the first Fallen ketch to arrive on Earth. He looked around, not seeing any skeleton until he felt it: Light, burning as bright as day despite the lack of a body, flooding his systems with its warmth. It was so much he didn't even need to draw from his reserves to perform a resurrection and his segments twisted in anticipation and pure joy; this was it. He had found them.  
He expanded into a sphere, channeling the soul's Light and nearby matter to reform its owner and painstakingly slow the form of a female human began materializing on the ground. The Ghost worked quickly, assembling light armor from his material reserves for his re-born partner so she wouldn't be naked in the cold Russian winter and minutes later a dark-haired, pale skinned young woman laid unconscious in front of the ecstatic Ghost, who felt nearly giddy with happiness.  
"Guardian?" he called, hovering closer to her face as she began to stir. "Eyes up, Guardian!"  
He was rewarded with the sight of the said eyes cracking open blearily, revealing deep blue irises the Ghost somehow found familiar. _Come to think of it, she looked very similar, if not identical to..._  
"Wha...?"  
She stared groggily at her now gloved hands, flexing them as if they were a novelty before she propped herself up in a sitting position.  
"What are you?" she managed to finish, voice a little raspy and distorted from the helmet.  
"I'm a Ghost," he supplied, "actually now I'm your Ghost."  
She cocked her head as if in disbelief before chuckling to herself.  
"So I'm dead," she said with another dark chuckle. "Didn't expect the afterlife to look so..."  
"Weird?"  
"Depressing," she said, taking in her surroundings. "And I thought ghosts were transparent and scary, not tiny floating robots."  
"Uh, well..." The Ghost somehow seemed to look a little uncomfortable as it bobbed in the air, "You're not dead. Not anymore. I mean you _were_ dead for a long time so confusion is understandable but you're alive now. I've revived you."  
"You did _what_ exactly?!"  
"I _revived_ you," he explained patiently faced with his charge's rightful shock. "If you want to get technical I reconstructed your body around the remnants of your soul by transmatting matter and channeling your inherent Light into a weave of..."  
"No no no, that's okay, no more technobabble please," the newborn Guardian groaned, pushing herself to her feet. "You made my head hurt even more."  
The Ghost drooped sadly in an apology before one of his sensors picked a reading he _Did Not Like_. The girl - his Guardian - seemed much less unsteady on her feet and he assumed that with a bit of luck they would at least manage to get out of the open before a pack of Fallen landed on their backs.  
"Uh, sorry to rush you," he said, turning to peer in the distance, "but we're not safe here."  
"Why not?" A roar sounded in the distance and she stiffened, balancing into a fight ready position instinctively. Good to see she had had some training in her past life, the Ghost thought to himself, it would sure as hell make their survival easier.  
"That's _why_ ," she answered her own question and the Ghost nodded before transmatting himself into her helmet. "Where did you..?"  
"Don't worry, I'm still with you," he reassured. "Now how about we head for that entrance before you get killed again?"  
She picked up in a jog which soon turned into a sprint towards the stairs as another roar echoed over the landscape, and the Ghost could feel her mulling over the abundance of new and unsettling information she had gotten in the first few minutes after being revived. She seemed to take it better than most, though. Most usually puked or tried denying the reality, but this one seemed to accept everything - at least at the surface.  
"You never told me your name," the Ghost began as she ran up another flight of stairs.  
Silence.  
"I don't remember it fully," she admitted a couple of tense minutes later. "I think it's Kat... Katherine. Yeah, that's it. But Kat's better."  
"Well then, nice to meet you, Kat."  
"Do _you_ have a name?"  
"Well, no, but you can name me if you want," he replied.  
"What the hell do I call a small floating robot from what seems to be the future?"  
"Another Guardian called his Ghost Neville," he supplied, but the distaste in his synthesized voice was obvious when he added, "But I'd rather you _not_ call me _that_."  
He was rewarded a soft laugh. "No, I don't think I'll call you that."  
"Thank you," he grumbled, scanning the environment and pinpointing an old gun on Kat's HUD. "There, a gun. You'd better grab it and I sure hope you can use it. We're about to have company."

Kat's head seemed like it was filled wit molasses but somehow she knew she should trust that little floating polyhedron which called itself a Ghost. Everything was surreal but also surprisingly crisp as if her senses were somehow enhanced by a foreign power flowing in her veins and by the tiny whispering in her brain that _yes, she was not dead anymore_ and _yes, she had been brought back with a purpose_. Any more than that and her name she didn't know not even about herself but when the Ghost pointed her to the gun her hands checked it with familiarity akin to an ingrained reflex. She had fired a gun before, of that she was sure.  
"Good," the Ghost hummed from wherever it had disappeared, "you've obviously had some training in the past life."  
"Once a soldier, always a soldier," she hummed, testing the old, yet advanced looking rifle's balance until another howl startled her and she saw the causeways inside the cavernous opening crawling with... humanoid things with _four arms_.  
" _Fallen_!" the Ghost cried and she didn't waste time seeking answers, making a beeline for a nearby passage opposite of where the aliens were roaring their taunts at them. A couple of encounters later she found out they died quickest when their less protected head was shot and grimly amused herself by shooting their eyes - or whatever they had for eyes, she wasn't really sure. At some point the Ghost directed her to a quite large chest on the other side of another rusty causeway.  
"That's a loot cache," he said as she pried open the lock with her knife, "Guardians sometimes hide weapons and other valuables in chests. We're lucky to have found one of these."  
"Mm-hmh," she hummed with a nod, picking up a shotgun. "Nope, don't like it. Oh, look, _a sniper rifle_. I'll take this one."  
"I could have bet my Light you'd pick that one," the Ghost chuckled. "After all those precision shots it was only logical. I could also bet my Light you're a Hunter, too."  
" _Hunter_?"  
"One of three classes of Guardians. Usually love wandering the wilds, hunting stray packs of Fallen and whatnot, and also the best snipers. You know, elusive, _hunt from the dark, kill from afar_ type of guys, and also kinda scary to be honest. They have a weird sense of humor and tend to follow their own rules."  
"I kinda like how that sounds," Kat said, aiming at another of the smaller Fallen who appeared in the larger room she had entered. The recoil was a menace with this sniper but the bullet embedded in the middle of the creature's forehead nonetheless.  
"The Vanguards will have to see for sure what class you are, but..."  
"But what?"  
"We'll have to get to the City for that and we have no ship," he finished with a sigh.  
"Can we find one?"  
"Finish these Fallen off and I'll do a scan. There's got to be _something_ flyable left."

"Eat shit, bastard," Kat gloated as the last Vandal fell at her feet, a knife embedded in its skull.  
She pulled the blade out and wiped the last remnants of the wispy liquid the Ghost had called Ether off it before she looked at the small jumpship strung up from the ceiling of the decrepit hangar. The Ghost floated by her shoulder, looking like it inspected it as well.  
"That's what I call a job well done, Guardian," he said, turning to look at Kat with its glowing blue eye.  
"Can that thing _fly_?" she asked, eyeing the rust deposits on the hull. "It looks like a piece of junk to me, honestly."  
"I'll see what I can do," the Ghost quipped, de-materializing in the ship's hull.  
Whatever he did, it worked since the engines coughed to life and the cables popped off the ship, allowing it to hover on its own. A loud roar behind Kat made her turn and see the biggest Fallen yet followed by dozens more of the Dregs and vandals she had faced on the way to the hangar.  
"Uh, can you..."  
"Working on it," the Ghost replied promptly, before muttering something a transmat. "Bringing you in," he announced right when the Fallen's mean gaze fixed on the Guardian, who felt hopelessly outnumbered and for the first time really scared for her life.  
Blue light enveloped Kat's body and moments later her butt hit the cracked leather of the pilot's seat in the jumpship, the Ghost floating next to her as the autopilot took the vessel out of the hangar. A wave of nausea made her double over and dry heave for some minutes as the small robot hovered worriedly around her, unsure of how he could ease his Guardian's discomfort. When her stomach finally calmed down - thank God it was empty so she didn't make a mess - she slumped back into the seat, closing her eyes to stave off another bout of dizziness and nausea that threatened to make her black out.  
"Are you... Okay?" The Ghost was still hovering by her shoulder and it's tone was worried.  
"No," she croaked, keeping her eyes closed. Her chest felt constricted and every breath was almost unbearably hard to take. Something was so wrong and she felt so tired...  
"Your vitals are way off," she heard the Ghost say, "but I don't understand why...Oh. That's why."  
"Hmm?" Words were out of the question since she couldn't even breathe properly.  
"Remember when that Vandal punched you into that wall?" When she didn't answer he kept on explaining. "You have four fractured ribs and the chest plate was dented, pushing them in. The transmat put even more stress on those hairline fractures so they got even worse. I'm going to remove it now. It should help until we can get you to one of the medics in the Tower."  
As soon as said chest plating was removed she could already feel some improvement, even though the pain was still there. At least she didn't feel like there was a vice gripping her lungs anymore.  
"Thanks," she groaned, trying to make herself more comfortable. "How long to that Tower?"  
"Uh, 13 hours?"  
"I thought you said we'd be there in a jiffy," Kat pointed out tiredly, waving a weak hand at the console. "What's making it so slow?"  
"No warp drive. This bucket of bolts can't break orbit."  
"Oh," she hummed. "Guess you have time to explain some things about..." She waved her hand again, "all this madness. But first, can this thing recline?"  
"What?"  
"The chair, Ghost. Sitting upright kinda hurts."  
"Oh, yes, it does. I think. Try that levier."  
Kat pulled at it and thankfully the seat turned itself into a perfectly horizontal kind of bed and she finally allowed herself to relax.  
"So. Explaining," she said and the Ghost began talking.  
Six hours later she knew a little bit about this entity called the Traveler, the Darkness, the Collapse and the history of the City. It was mind boggling to say the least, to find out how much had the world changed since she got under. The Ghost concluded from some of Kat's recollection that she had died a few years before the discovery of the Traveler on Mars, which sent the little polyhedron into a breathless frenzy of enthusiasm.  
"Ikora is going to be so happy," he had exclaimed, "so much lost knowledge abut that era we can get back! I knew it, I knew that you were special and that I was right to keep looking for all those centuries!"  
" _Centuries_?" Kat had asked. "How long has this been going?"  
"Some records place the discovery of the Traveler in the 2020's, but during the Collapse nobody measured time properly... If I had to guess I'd say at least 5 centuries, if not more. a millennia, perhaps."  
" _I may have been dead for a thousand years?!_ "  
"It's just a guesstimate."  
"God damn it," Kat had muttered, shifting herself slightly as not to upset her ribs more. "That's taking the damn cake for weird news."  
"More so than you being able to, as you said, _'do magic'_?" The Ghost teased.  
"Hey, you said those Warlocks are a lot like wizards and that all Guardians have abilities, so I only concluded."  
Soon her questions had run dry and she began searching for a proper name for the Ghost, who was actively giving suggestions - and voicing his displeasure vehemently on more than one occasion. The tiny AI proved to have quite a quirky personality and understand the meaning of sarcasm, using it quite a bit in their conversation.  
"What about Olaf?" Kat suggested, earning the equivalent of a death glare from the small polyhedron. "Guess not. Maybe Jim?"  
"Nope."  
"Max?"  
"Cayde-6's dog is called Max and I am _not_ a dog."  
"Francis?"  
"I am _male_ , Kat."  
"God, you're not making this easier," the Guardian groaned. "Not _Ant_ , though that name was somehow important to me, then... Gah, I'm out of ideas."  
"Who was this Ant?"  
 _Bullets. Blood. Pain. NonononoNO! Ant! Don't you fucking dare leave me you fucking bastard or I'll find you in the afterlife only to kill you! Ant! Ant! NoNO not my brother too you fuckers Antpleasedon'tdiepleasepleasebrothernowakeup..._  
"Kat?"  
She opened her eyes and felt a tear drop on her cheek towards her hairline.  
"He was my brother. Died in front of me. Minutes before I... before I..."  
"I'm sorry," the Ghost said, "I shouldn't have asked."  
Kat found herself speaking despite herself, remembering more and more details as she did, some she didn't want to remember. "He was four minutes younger than me; you know, identical twins - though I used to tell him he was the uglier twin quite a bit when he was an obnoxious little shit. When we were 6 our parents died in an attack and we lived with our aunt Marge since then until after college when we enlisted in the military. We were the prodigy kids at the base so they put us in special operations - we both had programming degrees and had been the best snipers of our peer group." She drew a deep breath, remembering their last day together. "We both died on the 19th anniversary of the attack which we survived at the cost of our parents' lives."  
"I... I'm really sorry for your loss."  
"Yeah, well..." She took another deep breath, plastering a crooked smile on. "I still didn't get to pick you a name."  
"If they're as bad as the last ones I'm calling it quits."  
"Hmm, let me think... I wasn't religious but I've read a ton of mythology when I was a kid. Greek and roman deities are out of the question, cause planets are named after them... But angels and other religions are game..." She frowned, thinking about some names. "Nope, they don't work...Fuck, gimme some more time, will ya?"  
"Nothing's rushing us, Guardian," the AI said in a slightly mocking tone, "If we push this ship anymore it will probably turn to ash so..."  
"That's it!"  
"Come again?"  
"Ash! That's the name," she exclaimed, and the Ghost seemed to consider it for a moment before nodding.  
"Ash it is then."

"...So I told Tevis ' _Y'know, man, I just got us a ship! You should be happy!_ ' And then he said..."  
"Cayde, we've heard this _four times already_ ," Ikora sighed without raising her eyes from the stack of reports in front of her. "We have more important things to discuss."  
"Damn spoilsports," the Exo Hunter muttered to himself, glancing at Zavala from beneath his cloak.  
The Titan's wisp of smile was almost unnoticeable on his stern face but it was there nonetheless; leave it to Zavala to pretend he had no sense of humor at all, and to Ikora to genuinely _lack_ one altogether.  
"So, Cayde, what did your Hunters find out about this... _exiled_?"  
Cayde-6 wasn't one to take anything too serious but he knew this was not the place and time for his warped sense of humor.  
"To be honest, Commander, they found nothing," he sighed. "Zero fuck all. Only a couple of bodies from some bandits who had been unlucky but that's all. He knows how to disappear too well for us to find anything."  
"And the weapon he stole from the vaults?"  
It was Ikora who answered when Cayde glumly refused to open his mouth. "It was _Thorn_. He stole Thorn."  
"And he simply... vanished?"  
"After entering the Crucible and murdering the rest of his fireteam," the Warlock added.  
Cayde felt himself shiver as he remembered what they had found at the spot in the Twilight gap where Guardians tested their powers against their brethren. An Awoken Titan and a fellow Exo Warlock had been found dead and drained of their Light, even the _Ghosts_ having been emptied shells by the time Shaxx, Cayde and a team of City Watch had arrived to the scene. Further search revealed _seven_ more bodies littering various corners of the building complex, all in the same state. There were only two survivors: an Awoken girl - one of Ikora's - and a human Titan, both shaken by the horrors they had witnessed. They both described the same gruesome scene: they were competing against each other when this Guardian, a Hunter they all knew and respected for his strength and deeds, had come down on them bearing the infamous Thorn and had begun shooting them all without any mercy. They had both managed to evade the murderous spree of bullets and watched their comrades get slaughtered until the Hunter _seemed to tire_ and simply left. What had unsettled Cayde the most was that the first ones to die were those in _his_ _fireteam_ ; the bodies they had first seen were of the murderer's friends and they were shot multiple times, almost full clips unloaded in their heads and torsos.  
"Where did I go wrong with this one," Cayde blurted despite himself, making the other two Vanguards snap their gazes to him. "He was one of our best and yet he did... this."  
"I think I have the answer to this one," Ikora said in a softer tone than her usual, pushing a couple of small notebooks over the table to the Exo. He took one of them and took a quick look at the pages before putting it on the table as if it was a burning coal.  
" _Hive knowledge? What the hell?_ "  
"I don't know what he was looking for and what he had found, but this is enough to lead me to the impression that he had been... _corrupted_ somehow." Ikora gave him something else, another set of notes written in the Guardian's neat handwriting. "He was fascinated with _Dredgen Yor_ too."  
"Oh dear God," the Exo sighed, "We have another Yor on our hands."  
"What do we do?" Zavala asked.  
Cayde drew a deep breath he didn't need, clenching his mechanical fist as he bowed his head in sadness.  
" _We hunt him down_ , that's what we do."  
 _Vanguards, we have an unmarked ship inbound_ , Amanda Holiday announced over the comms, breaking the sullen silence. _Arcadia class jumpship, driven by one of the Ghosts on supply duty who says he has a new Guardian._  
"How far out are they?"  
 _Almost in the hangar._  
"Send them here," Zavala ordered, turning the comms off. "Let us discuss this later."  
"Makes sense," Cayde agreed, "Don't want to spook the new one from day one."  
The comms crackled to life again on Holiday's channel. _I need a medical team in the hangar right now, ya hear me? Now, with one of those handy dandy medical warlocks and a damn stretcher, kid's a mess._  
"What happened, Holiday?" Cayde leaned closer to the speakers, listening as the shipwright spoke to the newbie's Ghost.  
 _Girl only managed to transmat out of that piece of junk before she passed out on me. Ghost says she was injured fighting her way through the Cosmodrome to get this ship. Hey, kid, ya hear me? You okay?_ All three Vanguards listened closely, catching a murmured response from the newcomer before a medic announced his presence and supposedly began working on her. _Med team came, they're transferring her to the ICU._  
"That bad?"  
 _Out of four shattered ribs, two are deep in her lungs so yeah, that bad. Ghost says she brawled with a Vandal and got tossed in a support beam. I'm sending the Ghost to you... No no, buddy, you go. She's on good hands and someone needs to explain what the hell is happening here._  
"We'll be expecting him," Ikora said.

If Ash had had _feet_ he would have been shuffling nervously on them, but given as he was a floating sort-of sphere he could only hover in circles - his equivalent of pacing - as he waited for the Vanguards to see him. He wished he had stayed at Kat's side but Amanda was right, someone had to give a report since his Guardian was unavailable so it fell to him to wait a polite distance away from the three Vanguards and try not to imagine the worst happening in the medical floors below him.  
"You can come, Ghost," Ikora Rey called right before his patience waned completely and he obliged, floating forward to hover in front of three curious gazes inspecting him.  
"First of all, what the hell happened to your Guardian," Cayde-6 asked, beating Ikora by a hair. "From what we heard she's in surgery right now and will be okay soon but still."  
Ash recounted everything, from him harvesting spinmetal only to stumble upon the Light filled soul nearby and reviving her to the waves and waves of Fallen they had had to cut through to get to the jumpship.  
"I believe she's Hunter class, Vanguards," he added after finishing the report.  
"What makes you think so?"  
"Went straight for the sniper rifle and shot 9 out of 10 Fallen straight in the head with some weapons nobody took care of for some years?"  
Zavala whispered through his teeth and even Ikora looked duly impressed. "That's awesome," Cayde exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air before he could catch himself with a sheepish glance to his fellow Guardians. "I'll drop by later and see if she really is one of mine."  
"Anything else to notify us, Ghost?" Ikora asked.  
"Oh, yes. From what she remembers she was born and died _before_ the Traveler had even been discovered."  
"What?!"  
"'The hell?!"  
"Are you sure?" Now Ikora was the one drinking Ash's words. "We haven't had a pre-Golden Age revive since - when?"  
Cayde's mood soured again as did Zavala's. "Since _Glass_ ," the Titan said curtly.  
"Oh, yes." Ikora seemed undeterred. "I wish to speak to her once she is better, Ghost. She may be a treasure of information about that era."  
"Yes, Ikora."  
"We'll speak later," Zavala said, he others nodding in approval. "You may go to your Guardian, Ghost."  
Ash tilted his body in a bow before leaving for the elevators in the far end of the Vanguards' Hall. He set the floor number and began closing the doors when he heard a voice call, "Hold it, will ya?"  
Cayde squeezed in through the half closed doors, his Ghost trailing behind him. All three of them stood silent as the elevator descended to the medical levels, Ash hovering uncomfortably while Cayde eyed him from time to time.  
"She'll be fine," the Vanguard offered after another moment.  
"I hope so," Ash said. "Do you want to evaluate her now?" _Now when she's unconscious and in a hospital bed?_  
"I merely wish to see her," the Exo defended. "From what you say she's quite a fighter."  
"She is."  
"What is her name again? Ikora was talking over you when you told us."  
"She said it was Katherine, but asked me to call her Kat."  
"No last name?"  
Ash twisted his segments, trying to remember if his Guardian had brought it up at some point. "I think it was Glass. Katherine Glass."  
Cayde's electronic optics widened as did his Ghost's single eye. Shock was clearly written on the Vanguard's face plates and Ash couldn't help but wonder why.  
" _Glass_. Are you sure?"  
"Yes," he answered. "Is there a problem?"  
"None," Cayde lied. "Absolutely _none_."  
"I know it's not _my_ place to ask..."  
"You're better off not knowing, trust me."  
The elevator doors opened and the Guardian and Ghosts were greeted by one of the medical Warlocks who pointed them to one of the private rooms. Ash flew over to his Guardian's bedside, anxiously scanning her unconscious form. A weight seemed to lift when he saw she had been healed and was only sleeping the exhaustion off but his suspicion only grew when he heard Cayde gasp slightly as he saw Kat.  
"Cayde..."  
" _Holy Mary mother of God_ ," the Vanguard breathed, coming closer to get a better look at Kat's peaceful face.  
"They are _identical_ ," his Ghost finished.  
"Twins?"  
"Possibly. Rare for both to be revived but not impossible. Remember the Wards?"  
"Yeah, and being _twins_ is more than a parallel between them."  
Ash felt like he was going crazy watching the shunted discussion between Cayde and his Ghost. It was his Guardian they were discussing as if she was a novelty... or a problem.  
"I am sorry to interrupt, but what the hell is going on?" he interjected.  
Cayde still looked quite shocked but seemed to have managed to recollect himself. A quick glance and his Ghost went to lock the door and disable security before the Hunter Vanguard plopped into a chair by the wall, wiping a gloved hand over his face tiredly.  
"What's going on is that nothing I tell you now should leave the _conscious_ people in this room," he said. "Most of all, your Guardian _must not know_ , for her own safety. Now, while you were out there..."  
By the end of the story Ash felt like the Light had been sucked from his shell, replaced only by sheer horror and worry for his Guardian. It was worse than anything he had imagined.  
"Ash, she _can't_ know," Cayde said in a tired voice. "It would tear her apart."  
"I know," the Ghost replied, staring at the thin body underneath the white sheets, her chest rising rhythmically with her breath as she slept. "It's my secret to keep now."

 _Ugh, I'm never drinking ever again._  
Kat's brain felt mushy and thinking seemed to hurt as if she had had probably around _15_ beers in a drinking contest with Ant. The last time they did it she had ended up groaning for an entire day in the bathroom and come to think of it, puking seemed like a good idea at the moment.  
"Kat? Are you up?"  
"Mmno," she groaned, trying to turn to her side only to feel her whole rib cage sting with a passion. "Owww..."  
"Why is she still in pain? Did it not work?"  
"Ash, Radiance dosages on people who are _not Warlocks_ tend to burn. It's normal."  
Why the hell were people talking and not letting her sleep? She cracked open an eye to see a small polyhedron floating near her head and a tall guy who looked like something out of a sci-fi movie with robots and post-apocalyptic scenes...  
Oh. She hadn't been drinking. She'd been fighting her way through a fuck ton of aliens after she had been brought back from the dead. _Oh_.  
"Wha' happened?" She squinted when the light on the ceiling burned her eyes. "And can anyone turn that damn light off?"  
"On it," the robot...guy - Exo, her brain supplied - said and the room became blissfully dark, allowing her to properly focus on her Ghost.  
"Hey there, Ghostie," she slurred, all of a sudden finding it funny.  
"Don't do that, Kat." Ash's segments twisted as he scanned her. "How are you? Does anything hurt? Cayde says it's normal to have a massive migraine right now because of the hypoxia but..."  
"Whooa there buddy, drop the big words. Didn't understand anything past 'How are ya'."  
"Cayde? Is this..."  
The Exo raised a finger, silencing Ash while he leaned over to a screen above Kat's head and checked something.  
"This is going to be a _funny_ conversation," he chuckled, "They put her on the good stuff. Too bad us Exos can't have it, heard it's quite a ride."  
"Painkillers?"  
"She's high as a kite, aren't you kiddo?"  
"Kinda floaty right now," Kat said, trying to keep her mind on the discussion. "Wha' happened?"  
"You took a beating, that's what. Ash here told me about it all. Damn brave, if you ask me, trying to take that Vandal at close range; too bad he managed to throw you so bad the doctors had to pluck your ribs from your lungs."  
"Did we reach the City?"  
"Yes," Ash replied.  
"Ship?"  
"Docked and currently being repaired."  
"S'good," Kat murmured, sinking in the pillow. The world began to blur a little at the edges and she could swear there were _four_ Ghosts floating on either side of the _two_ Exos she was seeing. Come to think of it..."An' who are you?"  
"This is Cayde-6," Ash provided, "the Hunter Vanguard."  
Vanguard? "Good to make your acc... acquain... oh hell, you get what I mean. Too many darn letters."  
"Yeah, kid, I get it," Cayde laughed before turning to Ash, "If she doesn't turn up a Hunter I'm going to be _so_ pissed. Really like this one."  
"Can't you test her to see?"  
"I need her to do the test and I doubt that if she's that high she..."  
"Oi, fuckers, I'm right here," Kat protested feebly, earning a shocked _'Kat!'_ from Ash and a chuckle from Cayde.  
"Yeah, kid, I know. Can you focus for 5 minutes?"  
"Maybe."  
"Just try it for me, will ya? Just close your eyes, feel for that warm little thing you feel somewhere in the back of your head and tell me what you see."  
She did as she was told, looking for 'the warm little thing'. _This is so weird... Oh._ it was warm and glowing and hard to grasp but somehow she managed to catch it and watch it twist and turn and split into three smaller orbs. The first one burned like a sun and she envisioned it solidify into a sort of pistol made of pure flame, the second, a storm condensed and elusive as the strike of a knife but the last one was the one which caught her inner eye- purple wispy smoke enveloping a bow of pure energy that seemed drawn from the depths of space.  
"I always did want a _bow_ ," she mused aloud, "but the gun's cool too. So is that electric knife."  
"A bow, heh? You don't aim low, Kat, I'll give you that."  
She let the glowing images of the weapons dissipate and opened her eyes to see Cayde and the Ghosts again. The Vanguard looked smug as hell as he extended his right hand towards Kat.  
"Welcome to the Hunters, Guardian," he said when she took i t. "Well now, since I've spoken to you and made sure you're one of mine I'll get going. Drop by when they release you, yes?"  
"Yeah, boss," Kat mumbled as the Exo nodded to Ash and went out of the room.  
"So I was right about you," the Ghost cheered.  
"That y'were." She stifled a jaw-cracking yawn with the back of her hand. "Can I take a nap now? M'tired..."


End file.
